Month: March 2014

Having recently celebrated the release of their first number one album Cavalier Youth, You Me At Six will release a new EP on 27th April. Lead track ‘Cold Night’ is taken from the album and will be joined with three tracks recorded for Zane Lowe on Radio 1 in December last year. Alongside their previous hits ‘Lived A Lie’ and ‘Fresh Start Fever’ they have recorded a cover of The Beatles‘ classic ‘Come Together’.

The band are currently on an extensive European tour before landing in the UK to kick off their dates on 28th March for the first of two nights at the Glasgow O2 Academy. Supported by Don Broco and Young Kato, the shows promise to be their most exciting to date and they finish the tour with their biggest London headline appearance to date with a sold out Alexandra Palace night.

Today’s track is brought to you courtesy of a hybrid of bits of The Go! Team and unlikely as it might sound, a mainstay of the Minutemen and The Stooges.

CUZ is the project of Mike Watt (he’s the sometime-Stooge, Minutemen bass player / vocalist et al) and Sam Dook (who you’ll have deduced is the one that’s usually in the Brighton-based dance outfit)

They’ve been at it for eight years apparently, having first met in Australia in 2006 when both The Stooges and The Go! Team were playing at The Big Day Out festival. As is the way these days, that firm friendship grew into a long-distance musical relationship.

‘Tamatetebako’, the first video from and title track of their upcoming album, “is based around an old Japanese legend about a young fisherman named Taro. The mysterious story tells of his adventure saving a turtle from danger and visiting a strange kingdom under the sea.” Not the usual boy-meets-girl then!

If the vocals sound at all familiar, they’re contributed by Dook’s fellow Go! Teamster Kaori Tsuchida

‘Rotations’ is the latest single from Sheffield based four-piece The Darlingtons. A cut that’s darker and more intense than anything they have previously recorded.

Listening to ‘Rotations’ you get the sense The Darlingtons spent much time in their rooms pining over The Smiths and Joy Division. It chimes with such melancholy that only a teenager could fathom as the Kiran Roy soulfully croons with the desperation of Ian Curtis. The guitar lines haunt with the sentimentality of White Lies while the Interpol inspired post-rock rhythm sections hammer down from blackened skies.

The accompanying music video by Karl Taylor (Reel35) finds further depths within the song (which is rarely the case), as it crosses the claustrophobic nature of David Lynch with the ominous ambiance of Ben Wheatley.

‘Rotations’ is the closest The Darlingtons have come to their live sound, one that is furious, threatening and anthemic, something where their debut album Decades Dance unfortunately fell short. Hopefully we will see The Darlingtons continue along this atmospheric path.

Brookln and Ruth Decker are Rue Royale. Influenced by dark chocolate, lavender and the universe, the couple are now three albums into a six year recording career. Last year’s release Remedies Ahead was born of their continuing journey of discovery and chance. Where its title spoke of their resilience and hopes for the future, the music itself evolved even further from its more fey indie-folk-pop origins into something of far greater confidence and maturity. Imagine if Mark Kozelek was suddenly invited to join Fleetwood Mac and you can start to see the outline of the Rue Royale picture.

Seasoned travellers, Rue Royale have just announced that they will be going back out on the road in May of this year, supporting S. Carey, the Bon Iver drummer and collaborator on his UK tour. To celebrate this announcement, the band have unveiled the official music video for the Heart Island remix of ‘Pull Me Like A String’, taken from Remedies Ahead.

Arse kicking boogie stamped onto a nine track cassette limited to just 500 copies by Radkey is set to cause bloodied noses not to mention the sight of record buying cognoscenti being propelled backside over elbow clean off their listening perches at the full throttle attack of this riff scorched punked out noise nik this coming RSD14.

Hotly tipped, hotly wired, just freakin hot. So chuffed at headlining the legendary 100 club earlier this month they recorded the set for posterity and now just wanna spread the love by nailing it onto ferric tape. From that here’s a sneak peek at what all the fuss is about courtesy of ’Red Letter’ – a blistering super charged slab of caned out rock-a-hula spiked with the kind of urgency and eye poking electricity rarely heard around these here parts since the days of the Godfathers and the Sid Presley Experience – did we mention the Vanian-esque vocals, no, features Vanian-esque vocals which young folk isn’t a communicable disease.

It’s no wonder that Sam Brookes is being compared to the greats such as John Martyn with his new album ‘Kairos‘ sitting somewhere between the legendary Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley.
Standout, and opening song ‘Numb‘ showcases Brookes at his best, with soothing vocals sitting comfortably upon intricate finger picked guitar playing. It is here, while Brookes vocals almost break under the fragility of his story telling, that layers of whistles and vocal harmonies just passively soak into your willing ears.
‘Crazy World and You‘ picks up the pace, with up-tempo strummed guitars, anthemic drumming and one of those pre-chorus build-ups that just begs to become the folky soundtrack for one of this summers festivals with Brookes almost spilling into crooning as he belts out the chorus lyrics, ‘Out in the countryside where it feels like there’s just a crazy world and you’, but luckily saving himself with a glorious high note (of which there are many on the album).
However, it isn’t all positive. At times, ‘Kairos‘ feels like it doesn’t really fit anywhere. It’s a little bit seventies folk, influenced by jazz, with tracks like ‘On The Mend‘ bordering, musically at least, on being cheesy and sounding dated. Whether this is a musical issue, or lyrical, or vocal, I’m not quite sure, but on a couple of tracks the album begins to feel almost like a guilty pleasure (as if you are secretly listening to one of dads old records that you said was awful previously). To some, including myself, this isn’t a bad thing, but it could just be the difference between ‘Kairos‘ being ignored, or getting the attention it deserves. This reviewer at least, hopes that music buyers can see this album for what it is, sonically heavenly, lyrically intelligent and an absolute pleasure to listen to.

As fate would have it, London singer Emma Garrett probably would have chosen a more opportune moment to release her brilliantly bold, bulgingly melodramatic single ‘This Is It’ a few weeks back, what with the fuss all directed at the announcement that Kate Bush would play her first gigs in well over a few decades.I only mention this because the single’s artfully crafted, string swept, gorgeously manicured epic songwriting could easily be compared to Kate’s prime mid period, which is a compliment, as it is both artful, clever yet infectious. But this tired comparison by no means does Miss Garrett full justice, the light, shade and sheer ambition of her towering breathy vocals, grandiose rolling percussion and insistent string stings here are quite earth shakingly beautiful and utterly relevant as she fully grasps the moment by plunging your head into the middle of an emotional turmoil.

Previous single ‘Dose Me Up’ backs up the impression that Garrett has the right people at her side and talent to express her artistry, showing off a vocal range that excites, entices and leaves one spell bound, hinting at the likes of Sinead O’Connor and Anna Calvi but sounding less contrived than the latter….

Emma has been playing live around London for the last year, watch a little trailer for her forthcoming EP which is out in May, here:

That the former Grand Kinema in Clitheroe should be playing host to the last date of Get The Blessing’s current tour of England would seem to be entirely apposite; movie reference points can be plotted right across the sight and sound of the Bristolian quartet’s widescreen vista. From the anonymous silhouettes they cast in their Reservoir Dogs’ dark lounge suits and crisp white shirts to the cinematic sweep of their music, everything they do speaks of anamorphic cool.

Get The Blessing is Pete Judge on trumpet, saxophonist Jake McMurchie plus Jim Barr and Clive Deamer, the two men who fire up the engines ofthe considerable Portishead rhythm section when it is out on live action. Together they dismantle the genres of free jazz, rock, electronica, ambient, dancehall and most all points in between and recreate it as something that is quite memorably different and most astonishingly unique.

Opening with ‘Music Style Product’ and ‘Torque’, from their second and third albums respectively, both songs are about as far away from Jim Barr’s subsequent, playful description of them forming part of a series of Lancashire bossa novas as you could possibly care to imagine. The former is a driving twin-horned blast of passion, style and movement that pauses periodically just to catch breath, whilst the latter evokes vague memories of the influences of Spanish folk and classical music that Miles Davis drew upon for Sketches Of Spain, albeit pushed through a mesmeric force field of reverb and delay.

The set is taken from across the entire Get The Blessing recorded canon though in essence the tour is to promote Lope and Antilope, the band’s recently released fourth album. Already described on these pages as having achieved “the right balance between what once was and what now is”, ‘Antilope’ is the first song from that recording to rear its noble head tonight; a beautifully subtle exercise in lyrical coherence which defies the purely improvised nature of its conception. Not for the first and most definitely not for the last time this evening, the dexterity and fluidity of the playing is nothing short of breath-taking.

In all of its gangster movie gravitas, Jim Barr’s remark that ‘Equal and Opposite’ – from their début album All Is Yes – is about car chases involving Mark I Ford Cortinas is probably just about right save for the marque of motor-vehicle. Given its twin-horns, sharper contours and radiator grill rhythm, ‘Equal and Opposite’ surely has to be a Zodiac Mark III.

With its blending of concepts and taut, suspenseful structure, ‘Adagio In Wot Minor’ is the aural representation of film noir. Set In North Africa in some forgotten past, guest guitarist Keith Phillipstransports it to the present day by adding some gloriously understated colour to the starker monochrome complexion of first McMurchie’s sax, and then Judge’s plaintive trumpet.

A triumvirate of songs from Lope and Antilope – ‘Numbers’, Little Ease’ and album opener, ‘Open’ – are all re-imagined in the live setting as more muscular, more powerful interpretations of their studio counterparts, fusing elements of jazz, rock and what you imagine may well be a deep love of French New Wave cinema as they do so. Both on their own, as well as together, these four men clearly enjoy the space their music affords them; to be able to express themselves and to experiment but without ever losing sight of the notion of melody or composition.

During penultimate song ‘The Waiting’,Ornette Coleman meets up with Joe Gibbs as the quartet embrace the “wild bunch” sounds of their home city and place that particular dub and roots reggae perspective within the wider context of the free jazz movement. Yet again Get The Blessing transcend their individual and collective listening histories and musical experiences. And yet again, just like the very best in film-making, their music is instinctive, evocative and conveys a story with a strong emotional impact.

The current affairs show is scrutinising the political record of Lutfur Rahman and other directly elected town hall chiefs

Two things are always said about the London borough of Tower Hamlets. One, that it’s a place of extreme contrasts, from the historic East End to the shimmering banker megaliths of Canary Wharf and two, that its politics are vicious. Both are true.

At the centre of all this stands Lutfur Rahman, the borough’s first executive mayor and the most controversial local authority leader in the land. Rahman attracts a lot of media attention; not least on Monday evening, when the BBC’s Panorama programme will examine the record of himself and other directly elected town hall chiefs.

A lot of the time when a frontman of a well loved group goes solo, the resulting material can sometimes end up sounding a bit like their usual band but not quite as good. While Manchester trio Doves have been on hiatus for the last four years, Jimi Goodwin steps out into the musical world with his very own debut offering. It’s by no means a low-key affair either, more of a wild adventure at times. “I wanted it to be like that crazy mixtape you’d make your mate which had everything from Duke Ellington to some mad hip-hop track you’d just heard, and back again,” says Goodwin. “That’s how I listen to music, and I wanted to make an album that reflected that. The last thing I wanted it to sound like was some geezer who was in a band. I don’t like being pegged.”

Blaring bursts of brass open the album with the Bond theme-like drama of the mean ‘Terracotta Warrior’, where the hunger in his delivery is evident. You soon realise this is neither a Doves album or a little side project. ‘Didsbury Girl’ unexpectedly starts as a sample driven piece trip hop before it blooms into a mysteriously dreamy highlight that is perhaps the moment here most reminiscent of his band. On the striking ‘Live Like A River’, 90′s dance flavours that have been lying dormant inside the former Sub Sub man for the best part of two decades rise to the surface again as urgent hooks partner infectious melodies and almost EDM-like sounds. It’s a confident exercise in creative freedom for Goodwin, who jumps from genre to genre as he pleases, presenting a journey through his various influences, even trying out world music and folk on ‘Hope’, while swinging into an unusual bit of vaudevillian psychedelica on the bizarre ‘Man Vs Dingo, a chaotic piece that talks of “sucking on the wishbone”, as the horns grow angrier and the whole thing has you wondering where the hell it came from. Startling.

Characterised by piano jazz and brushed beats, the elegantly reflective ‘Keep My Soul In Song’ provides one of the record’s best bits, as does the fantastic ‘Oh! Whiskey’. With an air of bar room wisdom, bright acoustic guitar and harmonica take part in a lovely organic arrangement before effortlessly progressing into a beautifully fitting middle section and slipping into a alluringly melancholic outro. Chiming notes and subtle breakbeats ignite the uplifting gospel/blues-tinged treasure ‘Ghost Of The Empties‘, one of many tracks which highlights the magnificent production job Goodwin and Dan Austin have done on ‘Odludek’. After the defiant, hard rocking Eastern sounds of the superb ‘Lonely At The Drop’, the wry, playful ‘Panic Tree’ finds him taking a different route and offering new ways to interpret his songs, as the album ends with a jaunty orchestral romp.

A surprising, diverse and strongly assured solo debut from a man who has defied and surpassed expectations. At times a slow burner perhaps, but plenty to enjoy. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars